The fifty-fifth session of the Commission for Social Development (CSocD55) will take place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 1 to 10 February 2017. The priority theme for the 2017-2018 review and policy cycle would be “Strategies for the eradication of poverty to achieve sustainable development for all”.

The world has made tremendous progress against poverty. In 2013, the most recent year for which data are available, 767 million people (10.7 per cent of the global population) lived below $1.90 per person per day, 1.1 billion fewer people than in 1990.2 Poverty declined by 1.7 percentage points from the global poverty headcount in 2012. The continued decline in the number of the extreme poor is accounted for largely by progress in East Asia and Pacific, where the headcount declined to 3.5 per cent in 2013, from 7.1 per in 2012 and South Asia (from 17.5 to 15.1 per cent). In sub-Saharan Africa, the poverty rate declined to 41.0 per cent in 2013, from 42.6 per cent in 2012, representing a decline of only 4 million people. In Europe and Central Asia, the poverty headcount declined to 2.2 per cent in 2013, from 2.4 per cent in 2012. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the rate declined to 5.4 per cent from 5.6 per cent. Poverty remains stubbornly high in the least developed countries, where progress is much slower and where the challenges are greatest. In the Middle East and North Africa region, poverty has increased in recent years, particularly in countries affected by armed conflict and instability.